A blast of an action movie!!

Rating: 9/10 (28 December 2005)

The Island looked great right from square one...to me anyways. And then I started hearing all the negative reviews and even the cast was shunning the movie and the makers of the movie were blaming the cast for the poor turn out...I wasn't sure what to expect. I'm glad I gave it a chance because The Island turned out to be a great action, sci-fi film in the same vein as Total Recall or other great futuristic action films. Michael Bay is no stranger to the action genre. He has created some of the biggest and best action thrillers. As far as I am concerned The Island continues his tradition of greatness.
Ewan McGregor stars as Lincoln Six Echo who appears to be trapped in a fortified underground city that protects survivors from a deadly breakout that wiped out humanity. As it turns out none of this is true and instead Dr. Merrick has created thousands of clones for the rich in order to save them when they need medical help. McGregor plays naive very well and although I'm not usually a fan of his, he does a decent job. He makes a great hero and he's easy to root for and his performance is well done. The heroine of the story is played by Scarlett Johansson who also I am not usually a fan of but for the first time really enjoyed her performance as fellow clone Jordan Two Delta. McGregor and Johansson's chemistry is quite good together and they make a great action team on top of that. The rest of the cast is also well placed including veteran screen bad guy Sean Bean as Dr. Merrick. Steve Buscemi also has a small role as the guy who helps the clones escape. Djimon Hounsou plays the bounty hunter of sorts who is set on the job of bringing the clones back to the fortress or destroy them before anyone learns of their existence and he becomes quite the anti hero but he performs a great role. Everyone plays their role in the storyline which really covers a lot of ground and always explains everything. It's an intriguing sci-fi film with a rather scary look at the future. And if you think you've seen car chases...NOTHING compares to the intense highway battles that are done in The Island. They are brilliantly choreographed and filmed (highly recommend watching the special features on the DVD) and are just brazenly terrific.
The film incorporates some of my favorite aspects of a sci-fi film. The naivety of these underground clones getting used to the "real world." (something along the lines of Demolition Man), a very realistic look at what the world could become and an intriguing epic storyline. As with any action movie it also heavily requires you to leave reality at the door. There are the typical heavily laden action film plot holes, and things that are truly just unbelievable or too vast for reality but that's what makes action fun!! So if you can leave that sense of....oh yeah right, come on....and just enjoy the film then you will find The Island to be a great sci-fi action flick and I can't believe it didn't do much better and I don't understand the negative feedback I heard it getting. I do however don't quite understand the title. This film has such little to do with "The Island" that it throws people off. There is never really even an Island in it. So call this movie...Clone Wars...oh wait McGregor already did that...well you won't be disappointed in this one if you like all those things that it is!! 9/10